Spheria
Chapter 2 - 1% Inspiration, 99% Funding
Chapter 10 - The Fertile Field
Chapter 17 - God from the Machine
Chapter 27 - The World Builder
SPHERIA
Cody Leet
Copyrighted Material
This book is a work of fiction and takes place in a parallel universe. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Cody Leet.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Editing by Michele Jacklin (
www.linkedin.com/in/mjacklin
).
Cover Design by Isabel Robalo
(
www.isadesign.net
)
.
Stuff You Should Know transcript used with permission
.
Gizmodo is a trademark of Gawker Media, used with permission.
First Edition, 2016, Version 1.0.9
ISBN: 978-0-9977513-1-4
No Trees Harmed, LLC.
56 Brewster Rd,
South Windsor, CT 06074
www.notreesharmed.org
Dedicated to my descendants,
that they might remember me when
I no longer walk this Earth.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Jan DiRuzzo, who believed I could write this since I was 12. I would honestly never have attempted it without her encouragement. It took a while, but I did it!
Thanks to my loving wife and kids who allowed me the time and freedom to get this project done.
Thanks to my parents who always encouraged me to try anything, and when doing so give it my best.
Thanks to the indie authors who inspired me by example including Hugh Howey, Andy Weir, and E.L. James. And the hosts of the Self-Publishing Podcast (
sterlingandstone.net
) and the Authority Self-Publishing podcast (
authority.pub
) for their wisdom.
Thanks to Josh Clark and Charles W. “Chuck” Bryant from the Stuff You Should Know (
www.stuffyoushouldknow.com
) podcast for permission to reprint some of their dialog. Thanks to Gizmodo (
www.gizmodo.com
) for permission to use their name in a fictitious article.
Thanks to my creative team: Michele Jacklin for fixing my typos and grammar, Isabel Robalo (
www.isadesign.net
) for designing an awesome cover and being a pleasure to work with, and my beta readers, Rick Baumgartner, Therese Arkenberg, and Mohammad Hamad, for their invaluable feedback.
Most of all,
thank you
, my readers! I really hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed dreaming it up.
Prologue
Photons flickered like frantic fireflies, blinking out of existence. Then they appeared elsewhere as if by magic. In a desperate attempt to hold onto life, they acted. Some died, and some lived; their destiny was not of their choosing.
The doorbell rang. It was Aunt Mayra from Victoria coming for the annual Australia Day cookout. Graham lingered in his bedroom, trying to prolong his peace before encountering her. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her, because he actually did, especially when she brought him gifts. There were just two things that nagged at him about Aunt Mayra: her persistence and her kisses. He promised himself he’d be respectful this time.
His parents greeted her at the door. After the usual pleasantries, their voices trailed off to the kitchen. The TV in his room began playing a new video, “Beds are Burning,” from the local Sydney band Midnight Oil. He muted it so he could hear the conversation down the hall. But the voices were too distant to make out anything.
He shrugged to himself and resumed his work, which he took very seriously. It wasn’t real work – more like research – and wasn’t even research since it wasn’t related to any schoolwork. It was his hobby: exploring what makes computers tick. More so, trying to make them, for lack of a better word, think.
Graham heard Aunt Mayra’s footsteps heading toward the bathroom, which was right next to his room. After a bit, the toilet flushed, and the sound of running water seemed unsettling. A moment later, Graham’s door was pushed open, and Mayra poked her head into his bedroom.
“My little Graham! Wow have you grown! Aren’t you gonna come give your Auntie a big old hug? After all this time?”
“Yes Auntie, how are you?” He rose and gave her a brief hug. Oblivious to his dodge attempt, she responded with her typical kiss on his mouth. He knew this was going to happen, so had prepared by pressing his lips together. He smiled at her, proud that he’d avoided any direct saliva contact.
She looked around, and not finding another chair, sat on his bed. He gave her a “you want to talk more?” look and returned to his desk. Amber squares blinked on and off on the screen of his Apple II computer. His father had bought it “to calculate taxes,” but that coincidently aligned with Graham entering high school. He soon monopolized it to teach himself programming, which secretly his father endorsed.
“Here, I brought you something,” Aunt Mayra said, handing him a wrapped package.
He tore the paper, revealing a calculator with a solar panel.
Mayra looked proud, and added, “I saw this in an electronics store in Canberra. It never needs batteries. Cool huh? I knew it’d be right up your alley.”
“Yes, it’s great. Thank you. This will help with my math homework.”
“Okay, but no cheating.”
“Of course not. We’re allowed to use calculators now.”
Mayra cocked her head and squinted at him. Then she gazed at his computer screen for a rather long moment, perhaps mesmerized by the changing patterns. She finally asked, “What game are you playing?”
“It’s not a game,” Graham responded. “It’s a simulation.” Indeed, even though it was called the Game of Life, the word ‘game’ was a misnomer. In truth, it was a simulation of, well, life, albeit very primitive life. The simulation was developed as a mathematical way to express how life can function under a simple set of rules. It consisted of a grid of squares, any of which could be either on or off, with on representing being alive.
He was about to explain the whole concept and the rules to Aunt Mayra but thought better of it. Instead, he just said, “These dots represent bacteria fighting for survival. If they get too crowded, they kill each other. If they get isolated, they die of loneliness. And if they’ve got some friends, they multiply. It’s a program that simulates artificial intelligence.”
“Artificial intelligence!” Mayra echoed. “That’s silly. How can a machine have intelligence?”
Graham resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Well, it doesn’t really. It just behaves like it does, thus the artificial part. There are a bunch of experiments like this one that simulate aspects of human thought.” He stood and pulled a book off his shelf. “This book explains all the ways that people have made machines think. They’ve been able to form symbolic relationships, solve puzzles, classify animals, and even have a conversation with you. But they don’t get the computer to think for real, like where it’s self-aware. That’s going to take a while. But I'm planning on specializing in A.I. in college, and I will figure out how to do it for real! That’s my goal, at least.”
Mayra was speechless, which was unusual. She stared at the blinking screen again, then back at Graham. “Whatever silly pursuit makes you happy. Hopefully, you’ll change to a real career before you graduate. Something that can make some real money!”
Her words proved prophetic. Graham went on to major in economics – but he never forgot his dream.
/ PART ONE /
Origin
Chapter 1 - Shard of Life
“Problem solving is hunting. It is savage pleasure and we are born to it.” - Thomas Harris
The plants rustled around the great beast, but not enough for it to notice. It was focused on finding buried crystals, violet ones, containing life-giving energy. The bright sphere above shown white, compelling it to forage.
Nine Polyans surrounded it, taking care to stay hidden. Like the beast, they were compelled to hunt. The bright orb above, which they called “The Source,” governed their behavior.
Unlike this beast, their best source of food wasn't from the ground. Instead, it came from the heart of ones such as this. There, in the center of its two rows of three massive legs and shelf of five scooping tusks sat an enormous violet crystal, pulsing with light. That single crystal was the one that gave this creature, known as a Zalisk, and all the beings of the world for that matter, their life. Without it, they’d be mere inanimate structures consisting of connected tetrahedrons.
Each member of the Polyan hunting party was about equal in size to a single leg of the gigantic Zalisk. Being of the Soldier caste, each of them had five limbs, connected to a violet core. But rather than being lined up on the sides, their legs were evenly spaced about their roundish body. They looked like how a five-legged spider might look, were there such a thing. As they got into position surrounding the beast, it stopped and listened. Zalisks were known for severe aggression, and many Polyans had died blundering into their territory. That was how they learned to work as a team.
Hearing nothing unusual, the beast returned to sensing the ground. It paused over a patch of barren surface, then rose up, plunging its five frontal tusks into the ground. It leaned back, leveraging them into a scoop, overturning a chunk of inert brown rock. Amongst the debris was a small green crystal, and the creature eyed its prize. It moved its hulking form over the shard and aligned the point of its own violet core to its dinner. The energy from the previously buried crystal flowed into the belly of the beast. Once the new crystal was depleted and now clear, the Zalisk moved on. Its own core was a little bit brighter, almost full in fact.